Queen Misfire

[norvegicusbass]

Great little upbeat bassline from JD here but how do you play the main riff?

I seem to hear F# G played on the E string then up to the G string where you play a triplet A A# B before coming down to the A string to play C.

I hear each note been plucked but the tab I see for this is slightly different. It says to play

F# G then up to G hammer on A before the B and down to C. Apart from a slight difference to the notes I dont feel it is a hammer on.

I understand it seems a small difference but I seem to hear the former. Does anyone play it?

[Cosmo Valdemar]

Purely from memory, I would be surprised if the first note was an F# - all the other notes would suggest it's a G. Otherwise you would have the Satanic interval between F# and C which would sound truly diabolical and not very fitting for this sunny tune!

[NancyJohnson]

I know the song, never played bass along with it or anything, but I do have a little snippet of something that might help.

First, a disclaimer. I should point out that I'm a big fan of those first four albums and the following is not intended to be in detriment of those.

Some time back I downloaded some multitrack files of songs from Sheer Heart Attack. One thing that became quite apparent (and I'm currently listening to the Killer Queen bass right now to make sure my memory isn't clouded), is that the bass is quite out of tune and or intonated very poorly. Tonally it's very woolly almost fretless in quality (I think JD used to put foam under the strings as well). It's quite excrutiating in parts and sounds like someone who hasn't been playing that long. With this in mind, perhaps the notes you think he's playing, aren't what he's playing. I'm listening to Now I'm Here now...equally as messy and littered with bum notes.